Rabindranath Tagore, born on 7 May 1861 in Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India, and dead on 7 August 1941 in the same city, was one of the rare writers whose life seems inseparable from the cultural history of a nation. Yet to call him merely India’s greatest modern poet is to reduce an astonishingly various career. He was a lyric poet, songwriter, novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, letter wri…
“Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Dramatic Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Poet-Musicians, Political Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Spirituality, Wonder
Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī, known in much of the world as Rumi, was born on 30 September 1207 and died on 17 December 1273. Few poets have crossed linguistic, religious, and national boundaries as fully as he has. In Persian literary history he is often called Mawlānā, “our master,” and in the Turkish-speaking world he is remembered as Mevlânâ; “Rumi,” the name by which he is most familiar in English, means…
“There is no “before” left to me. It has been a long time since I have had any before. If they come, they come before an image they believe to be me.”
Neighbourhood:
Medieval Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Persian Mystic Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Longing, Tenderness
